Leah Matson, PhD

Leah Matson has a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from USC. She is a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist practicing personal counseling for individuals and couples / families in Santa Monica, CA. She is available for telephone consultations and coaching. She also practices Neurofeedback.

Leah specializes in relationship enhancement, PTSD, problem solving, creative living, artistic blocks and working in the entertainment industry. She is a CEU provider for MFT and LCSW, and teaches psychology and creative process at Antioch University in Los Angeles.

In my work as a therapist and artist I seek to activate an experience of manifesting and putting into motion our relationship to creative work and freedom. In workshops and personal therapy the invitation is to enter a catalytic environment to support the beginnings of new visions. It's the flow that we are seeking to engage in. Once the work is done to release the past and its stories, the movement becomes to lift out of our obsessions and resistances about why and when we are blocked. We focus on what we really want by activating a new creative reality. We are seeking to sustain the perceptual shift, provoke the deepest creative growth we can, providing inspiration, and opening the doors to our new intended work. Art, writing, movement, music, communication and all creative activities are the mediums of each day where you are guided to surrender to your creative vision and join the dance. Money and work become the flowers of following your enthused and heartfelt interests and desires.

Anger teaches us. Although it emerges in many forms, we often choose to dwell in habitual ways with its energy. Are you a flame thrower, exploding into fire, movement, and destruction or one who dwells in the shadows of anger, face hidden as you convert it into resentment, withdrawal, withholding, and bitterness. We learn to shame its force into submission and depression rather than build the fortresses it demands around our dignity. Throughout life we may learn control, but instead of harnessing the power, we deep-freeze our rage by calling ourselves "inappropriate", out of control, "psycho", and hysterical. We can learn new meaning and motivation by using the energy of it as we guide it's power mindfully into effective, energetic pathways of growth and evolution.

Creative use of anger can enliven and expand us as we enter new territory in our co-creation of relationship with self, the other s and with life itself. We are not taught how to respect and use its alchemy as the foundation for freedom and the expression of a deeper sense of dignity and love. The emergence of uncontrollable rage can be seen as the last outpost of a complex battlefield, there are so many faces and shapeshiftings to be encountered when we explore and harness that fiery energy. I experience this emotion as an important indicator and symptom of creative blocks in our approach to life and self-expression. Emotional tools and a change of perception and metaphor can release us into the new.